According to Xinhua News Agency, the British “Financial Times” reported on the 16th that as the U.S. congressional midterm elections approach, American millionaires are competing to spend money to fund the campaign. Currently, among the top 20 donors on the “money-spending list”, most support the Republican Party and only one supports the Democratic Party.
Reports pointed out that this year’s midterm election campaign is still full of money politics, but slightly different from outside expectations is that although the Republican Party’s support rate is lower than that of the Democratic Party, it has won the support of most of the super-rich Americans.
The top 20 donors spent a total of more than $1.058 billion, and donations totaled $2.8 billion this election cycle. Among them, investor George Soros ranked first with a donation of US$102 million, and is currently the only rich man who only supports the Democratic Party; Silicon Valley venture capitalists Mark Andresen and Ben Horowitz, who run Andreessen Horowitz, Jeff Yas, co-founder of global financial trading giant Haina International Group, and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, followed with donations of US$96.2 million, US$91.3 million, and US$90.5 million respectively.
According to reports, the donors financed the campaign through direct donations, super political action committees and other channels. The Republican camp’s “Make America Great Again” committee claims to have approximately $400 million in campaign funds and has spent $10.8 million. The newly formed “No Turn Back” political action committee on September 1 has spent more than $89 million on advertising for more than 20 campaigns. The committee uses campaign funds in conjunction with the Make America Great Again committee.
In the United States, the core function of traditional political action committees is to raise and distribute campaign funds, with strict caps on donations to a single candidate. Super PACs, by contrast, can raise unlimited amounts of money for independent political spending.
Columbia University law professor Richard Briford pointed out that the funders are spending huge sums of money at a time when the Trump administration needs to make key decisions on artificial intelligence and digital currencies. Financiers in the cryptocurrency industry spent a lot of money for the mid-term elections. Related super political action committees have raised more than 99 million US dollars in donations, nearly half of which came from companies and investors such as “Bitcoin Base” companies. It is worth noting that the committee bets on candidates from both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Another prominent phenomenon regarding the midterm elections is that many donors provided funding during the primary stages of the two parties. Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford University who has long tracked donations from wealthy campaigners in the United States, pointed out that donors believe that doing so is more effective than making a move when the official candidates of the two parties are facing off.
“We have a system that is geared toward and dependent on super-rich big donors,” said Brendan Glavin, research director at Open Secrets, a nonprofit that tracks campaign spending. The wealthy are “putting hundreds of millions of dollars into it and it’s really having a huge impact.”
